MathTraX

=**MathTraX Racing Boardgame**= Created by: Rich Harmon (harmon_r@madera.k12.ca.us) Kim Imrie (imrie_k@madera.k12.ca.us) Greg Johnson (johnson_g@madera.k12.ca.us)

Downloadable Gameboard Pieces
Gameboard Parts: Gameboard Question Cards: Examples of cards, 36 cards are needed for each quadrant to play the game. Cards need to be printed in quadrant colors, cut out, folded and stapled or glued so that the quadrant card picture is on one side and the question is on the opposite side. [|MathTrax Student Scoreboard] [|MathTrax Group Scoreboard] [|MathTrax Student Work Slate](requires use of clear plastic sheet protector and dry erase pen) [|Game Tokens] [|Additional Game Tokens: http://cubeecraft.com] [|Dice- Move Cube and Points Cube] [|MathTraX Answer Sheet for Game Cards]
 * [|Quadrant 1 (red)]
 * [|Quadrant 2 (yellow)]
 * [|Quadrant 3 (green)]
 * [|Quadrant 4 (blue)]
 * [|RED MathTraX Cards Quadrant 1-L1-1.doc]
 * [|RED MathTraX Cards Quadrant 1-L1-2.doc]
 * [|RED MathTraX Cards Quadrant 1-L1-3.doc]
 * [|RED MathTraX Cards Quadrant 1-L1-4.doc]
 * [|YELLOW MathTraX Cards Quadrant 2-L1-1.pdf]
 * [|YELLOW MathTraX Cards Quadrant 2-L1-2.pdf]
 * [|YELLOW MathTraX Cards Quadrant 2-L1-3.pdf]
 * [|YELLOW MathTraX Cards Quadrant 2-L1-4.pdf]
 * [|GREEN MathTraX Cards Quadrant 3-L1-1.pdf]
 * [|GREEN MathTraX Cards Quadrant 3-L1-2.pdf]
 * [|GREEN MathTraX Cards Quadrant 3-L1-3.pdf]
 * [|GREEN MathTraX Cards Quadrant 3-L1-4.pdf]
 * [|BLUE MathTraX Cards Quadrant 4-L1-1.pdf]
 * [|BLUE MathTraX Cards Quadrant 4-L1-2.pdf]
 * [|BLUE MathTraX Cards Quadrant 4-L1-3.pdf]
 * [|BLUE MathTraX Cards Quadrant 4-L1-4.pdf]

=Instructional Objective= Third grade students will solve math problems in four content areas based on California State Content Standards in mathematics. Content areas include: • Number Sense • Measurement and Geometry • Mathematical Reasoning • Algebra and Function [|3rd Grade California Math Content Standards]

Skills in the following areas will also be reinforced: • Collaboration • Cooperation • Competition strategies • Logic Strategies • Mathematical computation • Mathematical reasoning, probability


 * MathTraX** is a Math board game that engages students in a competitive race around a track while participants practice math concepts based on grade level standards. Participants earn points for their team while trying to beat their opponents to the finish line.

**Learners & Context of Use**
The MathTraX game was designed for use in a third grade classroom with multiple game boards (4 players to each board) or as a station with a group of three or four students.

Madera Unified third grade students have shown a slight dip in CST scores over the last two years, we believe that this game, when used to as a practice activity after concepts are taught, may help with skill reinforcement during the year. Third grade students, ranging in ages from 7-9 years, love to compete and they love playing games, especially racing games.

This game can be played almost anywhere that there is a flat surface available, on a table, on the floor or by pushing two desks together. Although this game was created for the classroom, the game can be played anywhere. Since the game is based on math standards, and it can be downloaded from the Internet and used at home for students to practice their math facts, strategies and skills reinforcement.

MathTraX is designed to be played throughout the school year. One of the extended play activities includes playing the game multiple times over an extended period of time and keeping track of your total score. In this case the scores from each game will be added together to create a grand total for each students or each group. The student or group with the most points over the time wins the group competition in the class.

At the beginning of the school year, a set of game cards would include review questions from the prior year as well as questions based on standards covered during the current year. Several different sets of cards would be available for students to use throughout the year, with some review spiraled throughout the school year, but progressively getting more difficult as the year goes on. Cards would include problems matching chapter content throughout the textbook, increasing in difficulty based on standards alignment. Once students have mastered level 1, they can add level 2 cards to their deck, then level three and level four. Older students or other family members may use higher level cards during the game.

Cards will be labeled "Quadrant 1-4" to signify the California Content Standard being assessed. • Number Sense (Quadrant 1) • Measurement and Geometry (Quadrant 2) • Mathematical Reasoning (Quadrant 3) • Algebra and Function (Quadrant 4)

After the students have learned to play the game and continue to study their math facts, concepts and work on skills and techniques, hopefully they will do well on their next math assessment!

1. Classroom Environment:
Teachers can decorate a classroom wall with a race track. Students can design and color their own race cars and place then on the race track on the starting line. As students earn points, the students can more their race cars along the track until time is called and the winner is announced. Then students can return to start and start again. Students can be awarded ribbons for first, second and third place. This is a visually motivating activity that will stimulate the students' desire to do their best.

2. Classroom Teams:
Teachers can create teams in their classroom environments, allowing students to add their total scores together at the end of the week to determine a Team Winner. The Group Scorecard can be used to keep track of teams' scores. Student teams can be awarded ribbons for first, second and third place.

3. Grand Chapion MathTraX Drivers:
Student score totals can be kept over time, for example, students can play the MathTraX game each week for four weeks. The students with the highest total points at the end of the four weeks is awarded the "Grand Champion" driver. Other students can be awarded ribbons for first, second and third place.

Competing Products What's out there that covers the same content as this game?
We believe or game is better than others because we cover more content area than most games. A teacher would need 7-8 different board games in order to cover the same content as we will cover in our one game.
 * The games that we reviewed were specific to a single content area. Our game reviews the entire third grade math content over the course of a year for use as a classroom math subject tutorial.
 * Head Full of Numbers Game
 * Equate Math Game
 * Go to the Head of the Class- The mechanism used for asking questions and correcting responses is taken directly from Go to the Head of the Class, the classic educational board game.
 * Sorry- Mechanically similar to Sorry- the player doesn't move from start until they answer a question correctly. The game use of slides (free squares). Take five Slide allows player to take five points away from an opponent.
 * Monopoly- a game of gambling and chance- students will need to gamble on whether or not to throw the score dice more than once to increase their score.

Object of the Game
The goal of the game is to review grade level math concepts and skills. Madera Unified third grade students have shown a slight dip in CST scores over the last two years, we believe that this game, when used to as a practice activity after concepts are taught, may help with skill reinforcement during the year.

The students will race to be the first to reach the finish line and earn extra points for themselves and possibly their team if points are being calculated for a room competition. To become the MathTraX champion, you must have the most points after completing the MathTraX course.

Content Analysis
Math TraX Board Game Analysis

Game Materials
Your MathTraX board game should include the game board, Move Cube, Point Cube, 6 player tokens, 4 groups of 36 colored MathTraX cards, Student Scoreboards and 6 Student slates.

Time Required
Set up of the game takes less than five minutes. Students should be able to complete a game in less than 30 minutes. MathTraX is designed to be play within the time constraints of a class period, and should not be carried over, however the game can be played multiple times during the school day.

Game Preparation
All players are placed on the "Starting Line" space. Players roll the Move Cube with the player rolling the highest number moving that number to start the game. After the first player completes their turn, game play proceeds to the left.

Game Rules
[|MathTrax Rules.pdf]

Motivational Issues
MathTraX gives students the opportunity to race other participants, playing a game during math time. Competition between players is reinforced by the accumulation of points based on the players’ answering content-related math questions correctly. The game also gives everyone who plays some chance of winning (or at least not coming in last) no matter what their actual math skill level currently is. This chance of fairness seems like a good idea.

Challenge: MathTraX provides a challenge to all players in that the math questions asked and problems to be solved are chosen from the current grade-level curriculum. Some problems/questions will be easy for everyone involved and some problems/questions will be too difficult for most players the first time they play the game. As the students continue to play the game (and participate in math class) throughout the quarter/semester/year they will have the opportunity to learn concepts and skills to solve the more difficult problems/questions.

Control: the element of control is granted to each player in MathTraX in one important aspect: sometimes a player will get to choose from whom to steal points. Typically this would be from the player with the most points in the game at that time, but the player has the choice to steal points from any player. Additionally, when a player answers a question correctly, he/she may roll the ‘points die’ umultiplying that number times the number they initially landed on for a total number of points for that round.

Competition: As with any game in the classroom, competition is probably the main thrust of the game. Students will compete with each other, and hopefully, a student with lesser math skills will still be able to compete effectively against classmates who are less mathematically challenged.

Design Process
We all had our brief experience of reviewing two board games while keeping in mind that we would have to design something ourselves. We met several times as a group in an isolated area with pen and paper, a dry erase board and our collective experience with playing board games. We were able to leave or original notes and sketches on the whiteboard as we continued to meet during the last couple of weeks. This gave us a visual cue from which to start as we met each time. Each time we met, we talked openly about what ideas we continued to like from our last meeting and what issues came up that we were not comfortable with. For instance: various procedures, rules, game play issues that didn’t sit well with us. Much of the time when one of us brought up an issue that we weren’t sure about, it was a problem with the other two as well. This open line of communication and constructive criticism led to game development progress.

What were your first thoughts?
Our first thoughts were of some kind of game with an actual picture of a racetrack with lanes and something to do with getting to an ‘inside lane’ for winning. We also had an idea of four different seemingly wandering, random paths around the game board for each player with different choices of paths the players could take throughout the game. Ultimately this seemed too confusing.

From the beginning we all strongly agreed about using Math as the subject area for our game. And we kind of randomly picked 3rd grade for our original design.

How did you enhance your ideas?
One big idea with our game design is that of ‘scalability.’ By this I mean the game board, pieces, dice and rules can be exactly the same for all players. But the question cards can be altered for grade level appropriate content. This way, different sets of cards could be used for different classes with just one board and pieces.

Another thing we tried to keep from the beginning was the ability for all kids in a class to be able to play with each other. We didn’t want the players in a game to have to be ‘leveled’ into groups. So some of the rules were put in place to try to make sure this was possible.

MathTraX Game Evaluation

 * 1) __Category Biases__: MathTraX is a racing game that requires players to race around a racetrack answering math problems based on grade appropriate California State Academic Content Standards. There is no personal bias toward these types of game. Our design team felt that a race game would be well received and fun for third graders to use.
 * 2) __Clarity__: The layout of the game is very clear; players are able to easily keep track of what is happening on the board. Board could have been a little smaller; it was difficult for short arms to reach across. The rules of the game were clearly written but had one area that needed clarification.
 * 3) __Flow__: Rules were fairly streamlined but there was some areas that should be re-written for clarity. Fiddliness occured when players were working out their math problems. We believe that the fiddliness would improve once players used the game several times.
 * 4) __Balance__: Players felt that game is very balanced; it is a good combination of skill and luck. During a player's turn, all other players have the opportunity to collaborate on the problem. Players felt that the process was fair giving them the opportunity to practice needed skills and not have to sit and wait with nothing to do.
 * 5) __Length__: The game was too long for use during math center time in an elementary classroom environment. If the game were shorter, students would be able to complete a round within the 15-20 minute station time. Even though points are earned throughout the game, it's not fun to leave a game in the middle of play.
 * 6) __Integration__: The theme of the game closely matches and compliments the mechanics of the game. The elements are closely integrated and help to form a unifying racing game model.
 * 7) __Fun__: The competition among players led to moments of excitement and moments of frustration as players struggled to answer questions. Players felt that the game was fun and liked earning points for correct answers. Players appreciated being able to work out problems even when it wasn't their turn. Players also liked taking turns looking up the answers on the answer sheet. Although the boys were more enthusiastic about the racetrack theme, girls reacted positively to the game theme. Players also liked the idea of playing the game over time and earning group points. The use of two different dice was cumbersome, so the second game was played with one dice and a slight change of the "rewarded" points rule.

__Strongest Point__: The game helps students practice their grade level math skills and strategies. During a player's turn, all other players have the opportunity to collaboratively work to answer the problem. Players do not have to sit and wait with nothing to do when it is not their turn. __Weakest Point__: Using two difference dice for two scoring purposes (move dice and points dice, was awkward and time consuming. __One Change__: Change point system, using only a single dice to move, award point based on the following:
 * Player rolls dice and moves token.
 * Player works out math problem If problem is correct, player multiplies number that token landed on by 5 points.
 * Player then records the total points on scorecard.
 * If problem is answered incorrectly, player only records points based on the number square where the token landed.